Page 32 of The Arcane Taste of the Witchwood Boys (The Witchwood Boys #4)

Kate

The Witchwood Boys are doing more than just trending. They’ve infested every corner of the internet. There is no culture without them on this rainy, foggy Eureka morning. I’m scrolling around on my phone, trying to see if we’re getting less popular yet.

“We have a lot of fucking to do to complete that spell, Kate.” Brooks puts a plate of crepes in front of me, and my mouth drops open. His crepes are perfect. Not a single rip or tear in the thin pancakes. He’s folded them into easily eatable little triangles. One is stuffed with sweet things, and the other is savory. “It won’t have worked yet.”

“Our sex tape got hardly any new views last night.” Marlowe is holding his crepe in one hand, scrolling with the other. Chewing lazily. He lifts his eyes to me and looks a little like he wants to die. “Seems like it’s working fine.”

Tanner plates his own breakfast, leaned up against the counter in a pair of sweatpants and no shirt. The dog gazes into his eyes like he worships the man.

“Yes, but eventually the spell is supposed to make all of our online shit invisible. Right?” I pick up the dessert crepe first and take a bite.

I’ll just say this: it tastes better than it smells, and it smells like actual heaven. Though it does nothing to stifle that other hunger. A need for flesh. More than that: a need to tear through the world until there’s nothing left.

I stop eating and stare at the crepe in my hands, at the bit of strawberry and banana peeking from the top. The smear of chocolate-hazelnut spread. My mouth waters, but I need to say this next bit before I lose my nerve.

“On the night of the new moon, I’ll put my hand in the Witch’s Tree.” I exhale, proud of myself for having gotten that out. “If the gate still works, that is. If it doesn’t, and I sing the world to sleep—”

“You can go in the tree, but you aren’t going in by yourself, kitten.” Tanner takes a seat in his chair and shrugs his shoulders. He kicks his feet out beneath the table, one foot touching mine. We look at each other, and I realize this is going to be a serious fight.

I cannot let the men win this one.

“Yes, I am. I’m the Hag Wytch, Tanner. The more that moon shrinks, the more I can feel it. These awful rings won’t protect us on a new moon night. I need to go into those woods, and I need to hunt. You three need to be on the other side of a strong barrier.”

“Oh, really?” Brooks asks, and he’s as mean as I’ve ever heard him. He grabs onto the legs of my chair with his ankles and drags me in close, so he can peer at me from across the surface of the table. I’m ready to poke him in the giant eye on his hat so I can take off running.

“Do this, or I won’t be able to trust myself around you. I need to be in the Witchwoods during the new moon, and not here where I can eat you.” I’m adamant about this, setting my crepe down and wiping my hands off. I curl them into fists on either side of my plate as I glance over at Marlowe.

“You’ll talk, get stuck down there. We’ll have to come in and cast another spell to get out when all we should be worrying about is how to kill this curse.” Lo flicks his hand aggressively in my direction, proving that I was right. They’re going to fight me on this.

Wonderful.

Three against one.

“I’ll only stay for the duration of that one day. I’ll hunt and eat to my fill, and then, when I’m sentient and in control again, I’ll come back.” I try not to sound like I’m pleading. I’m not. This is how it’s going to be.

I’m the strongest party here. Physically. Magically. All I have to do is pull this clit piercing out, and it’s game over. I’ll be the Hag Wytch again. I can fight my way back to the tree, and burn it to the ground from the inside.

Whatever it takes to protect them.

“That’s a ridiculous presumption to go into the woods with, Kate.” Brooks is sneering as he sips his coffee, but I think he’s only that angry because he knows I’m right. “Do you need us to feed you humans? Is that it? Is that where you’re losing control?”

“It’s the moon, Brooks. I can feel it coming. I can’t fight the curse all at once. I have to let it out in fits and spurts or the pressure is too great. It builds.” I gesture at my chest, at the horrible feeling inside my bones. I get itchier and weirder as the days progress. The clit piercing hurts. It’s bleeding again.

I need to take it out, allow the curse to ruin me. Then maybe, just maybe, I can put it away again. I’m going the werewolf route here. One night a month, I can be a monster. The men can feed me. It could all work out, couldn’t it?

“Trust me enough to do this. I’m immortal. I can’t die. Putting me in that tree is nothing but a precaution, and you know it. I’ll come back in a day or two, and if I don’t, you can come in after me. But I can’t put the whole world to sleep a second time, especially when there’s a chance you three could get eaten as easily as anyone else.” I reach up to adjust my hat as Flick trots in and drops his ball into my palm. I throw it for him as the kitchen remains quiet. “Please don’t disrespect the choice I made, and the words I’m using to tell you what I want. I need to be in the Witchwoods during the moonless night. If we do that once a month, I can move forward with this. I can keep fighting for a permanent way to break the curse.”

Tanner exhales and closes his eyes because he knows this is me, doing my best not to run. I’m asking for help and explaining my needs. He’s trying to take that into account.

Brooks gets up and out of his chair like it’s on— Oh, wait. It is on fire. The chair burns as he stands there, cold and angry and thoughtful.

I look over at Marlowe, and he stares back at me like he can’t believe what he’s hearing.

“If you get stuck over there, we’re coming. You understand that, don’t you?” Lo asks, breathing a little too hard. I nod, and he turns away. None of them are looking at me right now. I keep sitting there, waiting. I sip my coffee. I throw the ball for the dog.

Brooks exhales sharply, and his chair collapses into a pile of ashes at his feet.

“Fine. You can go in the tree by yourself, but you’ll have forty-eight hours to come out or we go in there and kill ourselves trying to find you, to save you. Understood?” He takes exactly what I was hoping would happen, and turns it into an order. Typical.

I almost smile, but instead, I keep it somber and nod. Marlowe groans and puts his forehead on his folded arms. Tanner’s expression is icy. Serious. Annoyed. He looks up at me and then licks the scar that cuts into his lip.

“If being separated by a few miles hurt as bad as it did, what’s this going to feel like?” he asks, and I shy away from the horror of my imagination.

“And I thought swallowing jizz was the worst thing that’s happened thus far. Nice to know there’s more to look forward to.” Marlowe picks up his crepe and takes an angry bite.

“Do you think it’s a good idea for us to feed people into the tree?” Brooks asks me, entirely serious. He’ll do it, bring victims to his Hag Wytch wife. He’ll quite literally feed the world to his monster.

“I’m not sure. Maybe. Yeah.” I stop talking as Marlowe reaches up to tug at the edges of his hat brim. His teeth are gritted, and he looks like he’s close to having a total break.

“And you want us to have dinner at my parents’ place next week?” He peers at me with a heavy dose of skepticism. “Are you okay to do that, Kate? If we need to postpone it or even cancel it—”

“I want to go.” I wave my hand dismissively. I am not missing out on meeting the Waverleys properly. Hell no. Ridiculous. “Besides, I’m sure all the sex we’ll have between now and then will keep me safely away from cannibalism.”

Marlowe slams his elbow on the table and leans in toward me, like he’s suspicious.

“If you need to eat someone during that dinner thing, Miriam and Dennis are okay. As a last resort, my dad. But leave my mom and sisters out of it if you can.”

“Hah.” I take another bite of my crepe, but it’s not a bad joke. I’m smiling again, and Tanner is experiencing a nosebleed. Ugh. It’s getting worse for sure.

This spell, it’s not going to hold much longer.

“Wait. Miriam and Dennis are invited to this thing?” Tanner is annoyed, opening one of the kitchen drawers and withdrawing the leather falconry glove he stole off his father’s corpse. “I’m not sure that I’m okay with that.”

“Nobody said anything to me, but if I know my parents—” Marlowe stops talking, like he’s just realized what he said. “Hell, maybe I don’t know them anymore? But if I do, they’ll invite Miriam and Dennis even though I texted and asked them not to. Wait until they learn the truth.”

“We’re going to tell them everything?” Brooks asks, swirling his finger in a circle and reassembling his chair from the ashes. Fuuuuck. That’s some magic right there.

“Everything,” Marlowe agrees as Tanner whistles sharply, drawing Ebon through the open back door. She hits the glove hard when she comes in for a landing, dropping a dead … oh, it’s a forest spirit … on the floor.

“Hmm.” Tanner bends down to pick it up, studying the headless creature in his hand. He chucks it out the back door, and the toad from yesterday comes forward to eat it, swallowing the body whole. Ebon caws and spreads her wings, flapping them in frustration. “Hey, Brooks, I don’t like that toad. Bad feeling about it.”

“Kill it,” Brooks says, closing all of his eyes as he sips his coffee, black shadow antlers wicked and ugly above his head.

Tanner slips outside to hunt the toad, but he never does find it.

Bad vibes indeed. A solid red eye with a square pupil.

My hat steals a bite of my crepe, and I lift my coffee to my lips. Eh. Fuck that stupid toad.

What’s more frightening than the curse I’ve already cast on myself?

“Okay, so what does your mom like?” I ask Marlowe, hands on my hips as I stare at the eclectic display of local wines on the shelf in front of me. Names like Esoteric Shark and The Queen of Salt and Fog. I pick up a white with that name, studying the colorful art on the label.

We’re at the co-op because I have the sense that my new in-laws are expensive local wine people. I just need my new husband to tell me if my mother-in-law likes red or white. She’s the one I have to please. I have the sense that Marlowe’s dad will agree with whatever opinion his wife has of me.

“Shit, I have no idea.” Marlowe has his knee cocked, fingers ruffling up his hair. He’s holding his hat with his right hand, arm extended away from his body to keep the stinging nettles that’ve just sprouted on the brim away from us. These are no normal nettles: they’re Witchwoods nettles, and they fucking hissed at me. The plants have mouths with angry teeth. “I want to say she’s into chardonnay, but I can’t remember now.”

He goes pale, lips dropping into a neutral shape, eyes going sharp and far away.

I snap my fingers in front of his face, and he breaks right out of it. If I’m not around, who will do that for him? Can Brooks? Can Tanner someday be that close to him? I want that so bad for them. So, so bad. I’m trying to nurture those growing buds as much as I can.

“Why don’t we buy one of everything? Bring it all. She can pick her favorite, and we’ll make a party out of the rest.” Tanner snatches a pinot with a cat on the label and sets it in the cart. He grabs a few reds, too. I pocket the chardonnay with the crown design.

Brooks leans over the cart, searching the store with his plethora of eyes. We’re standing near a display of banana slug stuffies, postcards featuring the redwoods, and magnets that say Humboldt County. Beside that, there’s a stack of clear cases filled with bagels from my favorite place in Old Town.

“Why do we need to bring a gift at all? You brought their son back, Kate. How could his parents not fall in love with you?” Brooks smiles tightly at me as he asks, and I gnaw on my lip.

“What would your parents have thought of me?” I ask, and it’s a weirdly intimate question to bring up in public. Thank God we made that extra batch of cumcakes this morning. Pink ones, strawberry flavored with whipped cream frosting. Seriously, whipped cream. The witch semen is only in the cake part. Anyway, our glamour is working perfectly.

Still waiting for this spell to kick in and start limiting our online popularity though. I’ve seen people walk by with Marlowe on their phone screens. Tanner. Brooks. Fortunately, none with me. Just some comments about how I’m not nearly attractive enough to have such hot company. Cute, Internet. Real cute.

“My parents would’ve liked you, provided they didn’t know about this arrangement.” Brooks twirls a finger to indicate the other men. I adjust my cloaking cloak to ensure my wings are still hidden while Marlowe loads wine into the cart and Tanner helps him.

We can’t afford this, so I guess we’re using magic to steal it. Not sure we’ll ever get paid for the Pink Lady, but we did inadvertently get our employer murdered. And then I ate her corpse.

Yeah, also that.

“If they’d known?” I prompt as Marlowe and Tanner both pause on either side of me, the cart in front of us, like a private gathering in a grocery store aisle.

“They’d have been angry, but they’d have been polite. A little icy. A bit distant.” Brooks shrugs one big shoulder. “But not my sister. You got to see that for yourself.”

“If my sisters reject me, I’ll fucking lose it,” Lo admits, and then I see him try to catch himself. He’s more worried about the curse situation than this, but if I weren’t actively turning into a were-owl-god, this would be the biggest issue in his life. “But I don’t think they will. I’m … confident, I guess.”

Marlowe tosses his hat into the cart so he doesn’t have hissing nettles near his face.

We walk down another aisle, this one filled with goat milk soap and wooden scrubbers made of hemp.

“What about you, Tanner? What would your dad’s reaction to me have been?” I ask, clasping my hands together behind my back as my hat gobbles up a few stray cosmetics here and there. Fortunately, they’re all local stuff, too, made of beeswax and essential oils. I’ve tasted worse.

“I never would’ve introduced you to him,” Tanner tells me, ears swiveling on his head as he takes in the busy market. He doesn’t like it in places like this. Maybe he would’ve liked living in a Hag-free Witchwoods? He’s built for that sort of brutal environment. “He would’ve tried to fuck you or kill you or both things. Who knows about my mom since he killed her when I was young.”

“Well, then I have good news for you,” Marlowe mumbles from behind him, picking up a soap to sniff it. He scowls, but then adds it to the cart. “I’ve always wanted a relationship where I could spend a lot of time with my family. I know Kate loves that shit, but if you want to inherit a family, this is your opportunity, too.”

Tanner stops walking, and Marlowe runs into his back. Their shadows tangle together on the ceiling above them as Tanner turns around, his hat brim hitting Marlowe in the forehead. That’s how close they’re standing.

“Are you inviting me to join your family?” Tanner asks, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. Neither can I. I’m fucking stunned.

“We can’t be physically apart from each other. It’d be way easier if you got along with them.” Marlowe is serious, cold and quiet. Brooks smiles and looks away, studying the items on the shelf beside him.

“See?” he tells me, and there’s a smugness in his voice that’s already annoying. “This is why the Hag Wytch was cursed for so long. She didn’t have a coven that was good enough. You do.”

Brooks is glowing, and I realize that I am, too. Tanner. Marlowe. We’re all glowing and throwing sharp black shadows over the aisles and the other shoppers. Four little demon monsters skipping in a circle around us, exaggerated and unsettling.

People avoid our aisle entirely, and that’s not a side-effect of the glamour spell. Normally, they bump right into us before realizing that we exist. No, this time, I think they sense something off-key near the personal hygiene section.

“Well then.” Tanner looks away, flattening his wolf ears. Marlowe shifts, too, like he’s a little uncomfortable with the situation. They remind me of two boys meeting for the first time in the schoolyard.

“Just don’t spell anybody without asking.” Marlowe adds several bottles of lube to the cart, and I pretend not to notice.

“I won’t spell anyone unless I have to,” Brooks supplies, and I sigh as we continue down the aisle toward the cashier. We pick the cash only line that says fifteen items or less, and we have neither cash nor less than fifteen items. Nobody notices because of the glamour.

The cashier also doesn’t notice that she rings us up, and we only hand her twenty dollars. She gives us a receipt and into the parking lot we go. I can hear the ocean, and the late afternoon air tastes like an incoming storm. I love storms over the sea. There’s so much energy, like being plugged into the universe.

Marlowe collects his hat when it grows sea grass, yanking it onto his head and pausing in the parking lot to look up at the moon.

Or what’s left of it.

Just a tiny sliver in a navy-orange sky. The trees jut up into the horizon, further cutting the light of the sinking sun.

Sun and moon in one sky.

Not much longer now.

We load the groceries into the truck, climb into the cab, and head for Marlowe Waverley’s childhood home.